


The Clarification of Alice Kingsleigh

by websandwhiskers



Category: Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Genre: AU, F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-22
Updated: 2011-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-22 23:19:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/websandwhiskers/pseuds/websandwhiskers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three kisses, and the development of a unique perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Clarification of Alice Kingsleigh

***

Alice Kingsleigh kissed a boy for the first time at the age of eleven, and that boy was - disturbingly enough, in retrospect - Hamish Ascot. He was exactly two years, nine months, and eleven days her elder, a fact he mentioned frequently, particularly when she was dragging him around the estate in search of anything that might vaguely resemble an adventure.

 

One time they found a dead bird; the Ascot estate was, otherwise, depressingly orderly.

 

It was still not orderly enough to please Hamish, who complained of either the mud or the dust, the sun or the rain, the cold or the heat - this changed hourly and with relatively little reference to the weather. Hamish disliked to be outside nearly as much as Alice disliked to be inside - at least, unless she was permitted to find both a book and a hidden corner and keep both of them for a few hours. Unfortunately, hiding while visiting the Ascots was strictly forbidden. She was to spend time with Hamish. They were left alone and relatively unsupervised with scandalous frequency so that, as Mother put it, they might 'form a bond.'

 

Alice understood this to mean that she was being bribed to tolerate Hamish in the currency of hours of freedom. What Hamish got out of the deal, she didn't know and didn't especially care; she'd have just left him somewhere out of sight if she could have, but he was doggedly persistent once assigned a task, and he'd been assigned Alice.

 

They did form a bond, of sorts - a unique, two-person sort of sport, whose goal was the breaking of the other's sanity. This was, obviously, never stated aloud - but Alice felt distinctly accomplished every time Hamish was forced to get his shoes muddy or tear the knees of his trousers in order to keep pace with her, and she just _knew_ that he took a vindictive delight in seeing her forced into prim little dresses full of ribbons. He'd tell her, all shy and proper, how nice she looked. _In front of her mother._ Viciousness if Alice ever saw it. 

 

Obviously, it was not a romantic kiss that they shared, if it could even be described as shared - in truth it was more thrown down like a gauntlet. It was a very frustrated, ill-tempered,  _bored_ sort of kiss, full of the absence of anything even as minimally exciting as a dead pigeon, and with much reference to itchy stockings and stupid, useless, pinching shoes. There was also Hamish whining that he would  _not_ take so much as  _one_ step closer to the pond, that Alice was  _going to fall in,_ and she ought to  _mind him_ because he was two years, nine months, and eleven days her elder. And a boy, besides.

 

He had put his face really very, very close to hers, in the course of this scolding. 

 

Alice considered just shoving him out of her way, but she thought she'd get into rather a lot of trouble for pushing Hamish into the pond, especially if he hit his head on a rock and drowned. He was making the most  _ridiculous_ face, and it occurred to Alice that she didn't think she'd ever, even once, seen Hamish Ascot just plainly happy - and that he'd probably never seen her in such a state either.

 

At that instant, that exact instant, Alice grew up just enough to realize that she and Hamish did have something in common after all - something utterly miserable in common, but still, something. Neither one of them liked what was expected of them very much - Alice, because it was too little, and Hamish, because it was too much.

 

Two different people might have learned to carry on along together, making up for each other - this, Alice suspected, was what her mother was hoping would occur if they were thrown together often enough. 

 

For approximately two breaths (one his, one hers) and a blink (entirely his), Alice considered that maybe, perhaps, and given the lack of other options, that wouldn't be so entirely awful. Maybe. At the very least, trying would give her something to do. 

 

So she kissed him - quite properly, on the mouth. 

 

He stumbled back just as if she'd struck him, eyes wide and horrified, and proceeded to fall into the pond all on his own. 

 

Eight years, two months, and twenty-three days later (plus or minus three days, depending on one's perspective), Alice Kingsleigh did not become engaged to Hamish Ascot. 

 

Two days and one enormous, transdimensional leap of faith later, Alice tried kissing a member of the opposite sex (on the mouth, though  _properly_ is perhaps a bit of a misleading description) for the second time in her life. Unfortunately, it went much the same way, even though her motivations could not have been more different. This time, at least, there was no pond involved. 

 

Tarrant, her Mad Hatter, still stared at her as if she'd gone madder than he'd ever dreamed of being. 

 

"Should I not have done that?" Alice asked, in a voice that was neither proper-Alice-sized nor possessed of the tiniest smidgeon of muchness. 

 

"What one should do is generally a matter of perspective," Tarrant observed, wringing his hands. 

 

"Well, I'd like yours," Alice replied impatiently.

 

"Mine?"

 

"Your perspective." 

 

"Slightly nearsighted, generally about six foot off the ground when standing, less when sitting, such as at tea, or a work bench - extremely focused, when at a work bench, sometimes through a magnifying glass." 

 

"Your perspective  _on me -_ please?" 

 

"You're quite near enough to focus upon easily," Tarrant replied, though with a nervous giggle at the end that let Alice know his confusion was more evasion than lack of comprehension. 

 

"And do you  _wish_ that?" Alice pressed, biting her lip. 

 

"Yes. No," Tarrant said, his speech picking up speed and his eyes changing. "Would like you too close for focusing at all, on anything, would like eyeballs full of blurry Alices - no I wouldn't!" And his eyes dropped to his shoes. "Alices aren't meant to be blurry. Don't want to make Alice blurry, want Alice to be  _Alice,_ but, close. Yes. I do wish that." And he looked back up at her, quite imploringly. "It's so crowded. I'm not sure there's room for a whole, Alice-sized, not-blurry Alice." 

 

Oh, thought Alice.  _Oh._

 

"So likely you shouldn't have done that, no," Tarrant concluded, looking away again. "You really shouldn't ever do it again. I'll treasure the once."

 

"Hatter," said Alice - because calling him _Tarrant_ was still rather on the new and strange and stomach-wobbling side of things, and this moment already had quite enough of that, thankyouverymuch - and took a half-step closer, "am I blurry now?"

 

"No," he gulped, though he didn't back away.

 

"Now?" asked Alice, moving closer still, nearly touching.

 

"No," he all but squeaked, then giggled. He looked some queasy combination of terrified and desperately hopeful.

 

"Now?" She took his face in her hands, close enough to feel him breathing.

 

"Getting there," he whispered.

 

"Would you like to have my perspective?" Alice asked.

 

"I'd like to have your everything," Tarrant blurted, then flinched. "Shouldn't -" Alice stopped him with a single finger across his lips.

 

"Yes," she contradicted, "you very much should."

 

"Oh," mumbled Tarrant, lips moving against her finger and eyes trying to focus on it. Alice couldn't help smiling.

 

"I'd only ever want to be blurred with someone who didn't want to blur me, and do you know, you're the only person I've ever met who cared more about my achieving my own proper size and clarity, than about what he wanted," Alice said. "I don't care how crowded things get; it'll be an adventure, and I'm most flexible."

 

"Flexible," Tarrant repeated back, sounding a bit strangled, despite that Alice had moved her finger away from his lips, so that her hands cradled his jaw.

 

"Quite," Alice assured him.

 

"You might want to say that differently, if you mean only what you've said, and nothing more . . blurry," Tarrant suggested.

 

Alice just raised a brow.

 

The third proper (though that really is a most misleading description) kiss of Alice Kingsleigh's life was not initiated by her, which - despite her general propensity for self-determination in all things - was entirely agreeable to her. No one fell in a pond, either, though there was some falling immediately following, or at least a lack of remaining vertical. Approximately two and a half hours after that, Alice Kingsleigh did not become engaged to Tarrant Hightopp.

 

They just eloped instead.

***


End file.
